"You did that, David--how like you!" The tears still came easily to Doris's eyes. "Oh, well, I have a thrifty streak, and I hated to see a property like Ridge House lie fallow. It's great. The buying of Blowing Rock was pure Yankee sense of a bargain. But you see how it all works out. You'll have the time of your life developing your holdings and, at odd moments, I can start my shack. Look upon the change as an adventure--nothing permanent. In a year or so you may be able to spend most of the time on pavements--though why in God's name you want to is hard to imagine." Doris was smiling. "But the girls!" she faltered. "Forget them. Give them a chance to think of you. Take them abroad--that will be good for you all, but in the autumn, Doris, go South! You must escape next winter." CHAPTER VIII "_One is assured that there is a Power that fights with us against the confusion and evil of the world._" The warm June sunlight lay over the broad lawns and meadows of Dondale; it touched with luring power the buds to blossom and, by its tricks of magic, girlhood to womanhood. Only a month ago Joan and Nancy Thornton and those who, with them, were about to leave Miss Phillips's school, had seemed little girls, but now they were changed. There was a gravity when they looked back at the safe, happy years that not even the glory of the future could dispel. They were eager to go forward but were half afraid. Joan and Nancy had left the others and walked across the lawn and were sitting on a vine-covered wall under a noble magnolia tree. Nancy was still sweetly fair and she had not outgrown the childish outline of cheek and chin, the pretty droop of the left eyelid, and the quick habit of smiling. She was tall and slim and graceful and bore herself with a touching dignity that was as unconscious as it was distinguished. Nature had not arrived yet with Joan. She was still in the making, and the best that could be said for her was that she was undergoing the ordeal with bewitching charm. The dusky hair was filled with life and light; the eyes were yellow-brown and dark-lashed; the skin was creamy and smooth and the features irregular--eyes and mouth a bit prominent in the thin face. Joan was thin, not slim. You were conscious of her bones--but they were pretty bones, and every muscle of her lithe young body was as flexible and strong as a boy's. She could change from awkwardness to grace by a turn of thought. Joan was subject to outside control, while Nancy seemed possessed by innate inheritance. Both girls were in white, and while Nancy's appearance was immaculate, Joan's was suggestive of indifference. "It is wonderful--this going abroad," Joan was saying while her long, supple fingers wove the stems of daisies into an intricate pattern. "And to go to that little Italian town where mother was married! Nan, I'm going to know all about mother and father this summer."